Anti-Government Protester Suspected of Killing Two Cops

Jerry Kane, 45, and his son Joseph, believed to be 16, were killed in a shootout with police in Arkansas. It is believed they had murdered two officers with an AK-47 after their minivan was stopped on the interstate.

According to parts of the New York Times story on him Kane is, sadly, a very familiar-seeming figure in modern right-wing politics. He had an internet radio talk show, on which he compared the government to Nazis. And he'd had run-ins with cops before. "I ran into a Nazi checkpoint in the middle of New Mexico where they were demanding papers or jail," the Times report him saying. "That was the option. Either produce your papers or go to jail. So I entered into commerce with them under threat, duress and coercion, and spent 47 hours in there." He tracked down the cop who arrested him. "I found out where he lives," he said, "his address, his wife's name."

He made a living running debt-avoidance seminars — promising people they could shirk mortgage arrears or credit card debt. The Southern Poverty Law Center, quoted in the article, said "such schemes were common in the movement, whose members consider themselves sovereign citizens."